Cloudscape practise on Khadi paper

Been practising clouds recently. I thought this was quite a nice example. It’s from my Khadi sketchbook which I’ve had for a while but started using only recently. It’s not anywhere in particular, just somewhere, wherever you want it to be.

Khadi paper is made in southern India. It is 100% cotton watercolour paper but it’s probably not cotton watercolour paper as you know or expect it to be. From what I can gather some people like it and some dislike it, mainly I think because it does not behave in the way that you might expect from a top quality cotton watercolour paper. This isn’t top quality paper, at least not in a conventional sense but it is an intriguing paper with its own distinct qualities. I hesitate to use the word unique because I’m not sure that it actually is unique. It is unique amongst the papers I have used but that’s not saying very much. I have a hunch that there may be other papers from India and neighbouring regions that might exhibit similar qualities.

So far I do like it. I bought the Khadi smooth hard-back 21cm x 25cm sketchbook. In the photographs at the bottom, you can get a better idea of the appearance of the paper and the sketchbook (although the scan provides a more accurate rendition of the colours than the photos, in which the paper appears more white). The paper is not white but is more a warm creamy complexion One edge is deckled. To look at, the sketchbook is just awesome. The hardback cover is made from Nepalese Tsasho paper. With the deckle edges and the hand-made, rustic appearance it totally looks the part and you cannot but be impressed.

Painting on it is, for want of a better word, interesting. How it takes paint will I feel, either turn people completely onto this paper or turn them away from it. I haven’t really made up my mind about it yet. I said I like it and I do but I need to spend more time with it to try and quantify what I like and what I don’t like because there are also things not to like; for instance, it does not respond well to scrubbing. It isn’t some cheap wood pulp paper, it’s better than that but it also certainly isn’t equal to the likes of Arches, Fabriano or Saunders Waterford papers either. It does not to me really make sense to compare it with those conventional top quality papers – it cannot compete on those terms – rather, it needs to be considered for what it is, itself.